Plant. Nurture. Thrive

Unbeknowskt to some, beknownskt to many, I moved to a new place recently. The move is a very good thing, but also a very hard thing. Aren't most good things? I think so.

One of the hardest aspects of this move was choosing to completely uproot myself from a community that I-for the most part-really liked and "starting all over" in search of a new one. The journey of forming that new one is taking a while, probably longer than I would like. But in the process of waiting for that community to come to fruition, I am seeing many opportunities to live more thoughtfully as a result. And, good community (the kind that will last) takes time to develop. Community is not something that you can snap your fingers and flash, bam, wow it's there. Good community takes nurturing and intentionality. It takes presence, face-time, to cultivate bonds that will last the test of life's storms.

A lesson from my own life in the need to nurture and grow one's community: 4 new plants I bought from the nursery in DC when visiting a friend several weeks ago. When I bought the plants, they looked perfect (nearly), with beautiful blossoms and perfectly green leaves. They were happy and well-fed in their Alexandria nursery home. Once I moved them here to Charlottesville, I put them out on my deck and they quickly browned in the constant daytime sun. After a week of forgetting to water them, I had to bring them inside and chop off all the beautiful blossoms and let them grow again from small buds. Poor plants, they suffered severely because I moved them from what they once new as home, forced them to start anew and forgot to water them. After cutting back the buds, and now watering them consistently for several weeks, they're no longer brown and look like green houseplants. No blossoms or buds, but those will come with time. They're adjusting to their new home nicely now, but it's going to take a while for them to thrive here. It takes a while (and a lot of thoughtfulness) for people to thrive in a place too.

Life post-move is not that different from the faltering plants. It's taking time to find the relationships that will become the core of my community here, and I can't simply blink my eyes and have new best friends. There are lonely times, there are confusing times (where I wonder why in the world I did this), and there are also really good lovely times-like a day hike with 3 friends on Saturday or a beautiful Sunday evening drive up to Skyline Drive.

In all of life there are lonely droughts when we wonder why we ever cared at all, and there are also pleasant showers that water the land and provide just the right background noise for a restful nap. We need both to make us who we are and who we are to become.

Homesick for steadfast honey,
Ah! the bee flies not
That brews that rare variety. -Emily Dickinson